


La Garrotte

by lukegray (spacebarista)



Series: Une Vie Violente [1]
Category: The Following
Genre: Gen, Patricide, Pre-Series, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 13:24:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1820011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacebarista/pseuds/lukegray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Killing wasn't always about fun or duty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Garrotte

**Author's Note:**

> I was prompted on my RP blog to write about Giselle's first kill. I thought about why she would be alone, ripe for picking by Lily Gray. And this was what I was able to come up with.

Her hands shake. From exertion, from adrenaline… she has no idea which. Some blood stains the sheets. She’s still young, still small, so she wasn’t strong enough to really cut into his skin. But she’d managed to keep him from breathing long enough to do the job. She’ll thank her grandfather one day, for teaching her how to properly hold and use his  _garrotte_. The same weapon he used to quietly fight the Germans who invaded his country years before ended her enemy today. 

Giselle’s lived alone with her father for two years. He’d always been violent: hurting her mother, hurting her, getting drunk and doing it more… And no one in town seemed to notice or care about their bruises, how hard it was for little Gisele to look anyone in the eye. When she had trouble because of pain at ballet classes, she was just told to push harder, instead of being asked what was wrong. She had learned quickly that no one planned on doing anything to help. 

Her mother had always done what she could to protect her from the more violent attacks… but after she fell ill and passed away, her father’s rages could only be directed at his daughter. But she stopped hiding. Slowly, but surely… she got angry. 

And tonight she decided she wasn’t going to take it anymore. She couldn't. So she packed her most important things, some clothes, food, and money. She crept down the hall to her father’s room, where he has passed out in a drunken stupor earlier, and got the _garrotte’s_ cord around his neck. Giselle somehow found the strength to pull the weapon tight and hold it long enough. 

She can feel tears on her cheeks, but no pain. No guilt. He’s very still beneath her. Almost like he is sleeping. Like her grandfather. Like her mother. She’d seen so much death already. And she feels nothing but relief. She  _had_ to save herself. No one else would. He wouldn’t stop until she was dead. So death had to come for him first.  

She leaves him in his bed. Goes to the bathroom and washes the little blood that got on her hands off. She cleans the  _garrotte_. She respects it. It was her grandfathers, after all. She has to care for her tools. She packs it back up, shrugs on her coat and places a cap on her head. She has a long way to travel. She doesn’t know how long it will take for the townspeople to notice. She has enough money for food, and all the food she could pack. She’ll be fine.  

She takes her bags and disappears into the night. Giselle is an orphan at thirteen. And she doesn’t look back. 


End file.
